Limitless Calculus

Inspiration

We were inspired to make a website that would help students at Purdue University, along with students around the globe, to gain a better understanding of problems in Calculus. Since Calculus 1 and 2 are notoriously challenging classes, especially at Purdue, students need all the resources they can get to ace their exams.

## What it does When you enter the website from the shared URL, it will present you with a user-friendly interface that shows several different derivation and integration techniques needed to solve various Calculus problems. In the main block of the website, the user can enter any expression with a single variable seen in Calc 1 or 2 problems, then either click the "Differentiate" button to take its derivative, or click the "Integrate" button to calculate the integral. ## How we built it We collaborated in VS Code using live share, a feature implemented to simulate a "live chat" between developers, to build this project. We could each analyze, edit, and debug other team members' code in real time to bring the full program together. As for the languages used to make the website, we used a combination of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Challenges we ran into

One major challenge that occurred to us was the implementation of advanced integration techniques one may find in Calculus 2. For example, integration by parts requires the arbitrary selection of two variables, u and dv, to go forward with problem-solving. Also, the basic trigonometric functions of sine, cosine, and tangent were complex to get working for the website, since the program often struggled to choose the best trig function to "substitute" in the equation.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

At the beginning of this website's development, we had a primitive user interface built for the website that didn't have much to offer in terms of style. The background was entirely white, with no formulas to help solve Calculus problems or unique designs, and the input space was a bland white with two simple green buttons. Over time, this interface evolved into a multi-colored framework of Calculus formulas, striking word stylization, synchronizing color palettes, and a more inviting user-input space. In addition, our group is immensely proud of getting the Calculus 2 problem-solving logic to work. This required a significant amount of development time to get right, and we often encountered output errors whenever we attempted to run this software due to integration issues.

What we learned

All in all, we have taken away valuable lessons in proper HTML optimization, JavaScript troubleshooting, and managing our time with a tight-deadline project. Although some of us may have had experience in crafting websites before this hackathon, we banded our knowledge together to push ourselves further in website development. In the future, we may have to read large paragraphs of code to search for bugs or significant errors within a program. JavaScript had the right amount of complexity to challenge our code-reading skills and software insight.

What's next for Limitless Calculus - Derivative and Integral Solver

Although this hackathon is nearing an end at the time of writing, we have plans to continue this project if time allows. We plan to implement more advanced Calculus concepts found in Calculus 2 and 3, such as Washer and Disk Method, Partial Fractions, and Partial Derivatives. These are all key concepts that students will need to know in their college experience, so a reliable website for reinforcing the roots of higher mathematical thinking should exist for all students in any major.